Day 70 – Singapore

Day 70 – Singapore – March 15th

The ship arrived in Singapore yesterday morning at 8 AM. We missed the entire first day of this visit as we were still in Cambodia, arriving in Singapore late last night.

The Amsterdam was moored at the Marina Bay Cruise Center, which is a nice, modern facility, but is not very convenient, especially when compared to the alternative, the Singapore Cruise Center located at Harbourfront. We have learned that Holland America has arranged for the Amsterdam to moor at Harbourfront for her next 3 port visits – so good news for those on the next few cruises.

There isn’t much to do within a mile of the cruise center, but the ship arranged for a free shuttle bus to take guests to the Millenia Walk Shopping Center, about 3 miles away or 20 minutes in normal traffic. There is a metro stop, Marina Bay, about 1 mile from the ship, but you would be better off taking the shuttle and then using one of the metro stops nearby the Millenia Walk: Promenade or Esplanade.

After a lot of traveling over the last few days, we decided to sleep in and relax in our cabin until about noon when we left the ship and headed off to visit the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and the Gardens by the Bay. It would have been a 2-mile walk to the Marina Bay Sands, so we elected to take a taxi. Both leaving the ship and returning requires going to security and immigration which takes about 15 minutes. Unlike the Kai Tak cruise terminal in Hong Kong, the Marina Bay Cruise Center doesn’t require walking long distances to get to and from the ship.

We had planned to ride the giant Ferris Wheel, the Singapore Flyer, but it is out of service indefinitely for unknown reasons.

Three taxis were waiting when we arrived at the taxi stand. We climbed into a larger van taxi, which was nice and big, and were on our way for the short ride to the Marina Bay Sands, arriving in about 10 minutes. The taxi drivers all seem to speak good English, but some don’t take credit cards, so I always have a handful of local currency in small bills to pay the fare without needing to expect much change.

Marina Bay Sands

The Marina Bay Sands is a landmark hotel with its distinctive three-tower design with a surfboard-looking upper deck that connects the three towers. The upper deck has a pool, restaurant, and observation deck. There is a casino, which is located across the street but is accessible via a tunnel connecting the lower floor of the casino to the hotel.

We took the escalators to the lower level where we found a large hallway that passed under the street and connected the hotel to the casino. Once we arrived at the casino entrance we had to pass thru something like an immigration kiosk to enter the casino. Entry is free to tourists, but residents must pay $100 SIN per day or $2000 SIN per year to gain entry. The agent in the Kiosk carefully examined my passport, flipping through every page looking for something – maybe a resident visa instead of a tourist visa – before allowing me to pass and then only after my information was scanned into some system. After casino “immigration” we went thru standard metal detectors before we were finally allowed inside.

Spread over 4 levels, the casino has about 160,000 square feet of gaming floor space with over 2,500 slot machines and about 700 gaming tables. There are 13 different types of table games including several versions of Blackjack, Baccarat, and a Player vs the Dealer version of Texas Hold’em. More about the various games can be found HERE

A large area is dedicated to Rapid Baccarat, Rapid Sic Bo, and Rapid Roulette. These games operate like their table versions except that each player sits at their own terminal and places their own bets on this terminal while playing against a single dealer.

We watched the Roulette wheels for a while and were surprised to see several players used what we learned was called a “cover all” strategy. The players spent 3-5 minutes carefully placing bets on almost every number with more on some and less on others. They also placed bets on the corners and edges to play multiple numbers. There were a lot of chips in play and when the ball landed in a number, the dealer simply shoveled all the losing chips into a hole near the wheel where I presume they were sorted by machines and made available for reuse later. The players would all win a little each spin unless the ball landed in the single number they left uncovered. It seems like a very convoluted way to gamble, but I guess it has the benefit of extending their playing time.

As we observed in Macau, the baccarat players all ruin the cards dealt by tearing or bending them sharply which results in the cards at these tables are only used once and then discarded.

Only soft drinks are served to players at the gaming tables as I suspect this is to prevent “drunken gambling” and is probably a Singapore government regulation as I doubt the casinos would have a problem with gamblers drinking while playing.

After we finished exploring the main floor we took the escalator to the upper floors where there was almost nothing but slots and only a few table games and most of those were in various VIP rooms restricted to gamblers who were members of various loyalty or high roller programs. The upper levels, which were open to the main floor below, were much smaller than the main floor as they were only located along the edge of the building. Here is a stock photo of the interior.

After exploring the other levels, we headed for the exit and were surprised to find that you had to pass thru “casino immigration” and security on the way out as well as on the way in.

Visiting the top of the Marina Bay Sands

Our next stop was to head to the top floors and enjoy the views.

There are three ways to access the upper floors:

• Eat at one of the restaurants. This requires you to purchase a $20 SIN coupon which can be applied toward your restaurant bill. However, this only gives you access to the restaurant and bar area and doesn’t allow you to go down one floor to the observation deck.
• Pay $23 for access to the Sky Park observation platform. The Sky Park observation platform is one level below the restaurant level but provides better views since you can walk right to the edge. When you are on the restaurant level you must look over the observation deck which obstructs your view and makes taking pictures that don’t show any of the building more difficult. The view from the restaurant is fine if you want to enjoy the view, but you will probably be disappointed if you want to take better pictures. Look at my pictures here and you will see what I mean.
• Stay at the hotel which gives you access everywhere, including the infinity pool, which is only open to hotel guests and access can’t be purchased or obtained any other way.

We elected to buy the $20 coupon and headed to the restaurant and bar on the 57th floor (one level above the Skypark viewing area) where there is an enclosed restaurant and bar and another bar outside with high-top seating under umbrellas. We arrived after the restaurant closed at 2PM and could only order appetizers off the bar menu.

The four of us spent $80 SIN for our coupons and we ended up spending $120 SIN for 4 drinks and a small plate of appetizers. If I had to do it over again, I would have skipped the restaurant and paid the $23 for access to the Sky Park with its better views. After we had our drinks and snack, we spent about 15 minutes walking around the edge of the restaurant level enjoying the nice views. We spent about 1 hour and 15 minutes here before heading back down to the ground floor where we would head over to the Garden’s by the Bay.

Gardens by the Bay

Gardens by the Bay comprises three distinctive waterfront gardens – Bay South, Bay East, and Bay Central and is located east of the Marina Bay Sands.  We would visit the Bay South garden which is the largest of the 3 and is accessible via a walkway from the Marina Bay Sands. The main attraction of Bay South is the two air-conditioned conservatories: Flower Dome and Cloud Forest. The iconic “Supertrees” are located here and can be seen from some distance. You can get up close to the Supertrees on the OCBC Skyway, which is an elevated walkway that is connected to the Cloud Forest. By the way, OCBC (Oversea-Chinese Banking Company) is the name of the bank that sponsors Skyway.   More info HERE

It was about a ½ mile walk to get to the entrance to the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest, which are connected by a tunnel. The admission price to both conservatories is $28 SIN. We went to the Flower Dome first, but it doesn’t matter which order you visit which dome. An audio tour was available for $4 SIN, but we didn’t get them. Access to the OCBC Skyway was an additional $8 SIN and we decided to forgo that option as well.

The Flower Dome is air conditioned, really air conditioned and quite cold – so if you may need a light jacket or sweater if that would be a concern for you. We spent about 45 minutes walking around thru the dome, following a circuitous path, through the various flowers and plants. There was an Alice in Wonderland theme with many statues and other images from the book and movies spread throughout the exhibits. The exhibits here are outstanding and extremely well presented. We don’t generally go to botanical gardens, so I can’t give you a great comparison to others, but we had a good time strolling around and being inside an air-conditioned space was nice when it was much hotter outside.

We saw a sign the cautioned visitors to “not touch the plants or cover them with gravel” I am not sure why they needed to have a sign prohibiting covering plants with gravel, but I assume it must have been a problem at some point.

Connected by a tunnel, the Cloud Forest is another large indoor exhibit featuring plants from the cool moist Tropical Mountain region. A large green “mountain” greets you as you enter with a waterfall cascading down the side from the top of the “mountain”. Following the path, we went inside the mountain and took an elevator to the “Lost World” on the top floor where you will find plants that are typically found around 6,000 feet above sea level. Once we were at the top of the “mountain” we proceed down to different levels including the Cloud Walk, the Cavern, the Treetop walk, Secret Garden and Crystal Mountain. Along the way there is a balcony where we could step out and see the waterfall from a higher vantage point. It took us about 45 minutes to work our way back to the ground level. Near the bottom, there is a theatre showing short movies on a variety of environmental topics and climate change.

After a quick spin thru the gift shop we headed off to the taxi stand and we were soon on our way for the short drive back to the cruise terminal.

Back on the ship

Upon arrival at the cruise terminal around 7PM we spotted Laurie Ashworth and Spencer Moran of “Eterni Amici” standing on the curb, with their luggage, looking quite concerned. We asked if they were heading back to the UK or to some other port and they replied that they were concerned because they had an 9 PM flight and the driver, arranged by the port agent, was almost an hour late and counting. They asked where the taxi stand was and how much and how long it would take to get to the airport: 20 minutes and $27 SIN. They wisely decided to make their own way to the airport and we bid farewell as they scurried off to find a taxi.

As we boarded the ship we turned in our passports once again – We will get them back when we get off the ship in Maputo for our overland Safari.

There was a Singapore theme to the menu this evening. Check out all the menus on the blog.

The featured entertainment this evening was the “Instant Asia Cultural Show” which featured a dancing dragon and a selection of other dancers.

This entry was posted in 2018 Grand World Voyage, Asia, Singapore

• Cloud Forest
• Flower Dome
• Gardens by the Bay
• Marina Bay Sands